Monday, November 09, 2009

Top Ten Reasons to Brew Your Own

1. It is fun!2. It is way economical, roughly the same price per serving as tea bags.3. You will get a much higher quality drink. You get the whole leaf vs. crumbs. 4. Taste the soil (terroir) of different lands. 5. Taste the magic of master craftspeople. 6. Experience the joy of learning a skill.7. Take time for yourself.8. You get to collect a variety of pretty tea ware.9. Brewing tea makes you feel cool.10. You know what goes into it.

1 comment:

Thanks for this post! These are all great points; I think #4 is particularly fascinating.

It sounds far-fetched but I've found it to be remarkably true. There's something about soil and climate that influences teas in deep ways.

The more teas I sample from different regions the more I notice that there are many aspects of the aroma of a tea that seem to come directly from the region, independent of the mode of production. For example, I find Sencha produced in Vietnam has certain characteristics in the aroma in common with black tea from Vietnam--I would almost say more than it has in common with Japanese Sencha. I've noticed a similar pattern with Darjeeling teas--certain qualities in common between black, white, green, and oolong teas produced in that region. I'm less acquainted with other regions but I imagine that the more I taste teas from different regions, the more of these patterns I'll begin to sense.

I also want to add a new one to the list:

11. It's more sustainable! The production of teabags uses a lot of energy and resources, and it's unnecessary and wasteful. The money put towards teabags could be instead put towards buying a higher quality of tea, tea that pays a fair living wage and preserves local tea-producing traditions rather than encouraging mass-scale agriculture.